


The Fault in our Starsigns

by AcrylicMist



Category: Homestuck, The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Cancer, Crossover, DaveKat-freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Homestuck - Freeform, Hospitals, Humanstuck, M/M, Sexual Content, davekat - Freeform, rosemary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:17:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/pseuds/AcrylicMist
Summary: Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my Bro decided that I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, did nothing but mix new beats at my turntables, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my free time to thinking about death.No shit, I told him. Nearly dying could do that to a man.Or, that one fic that will leave no tear unshed or heart intact because pain is good I'm a bad person and we all know where this is going.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've done it. This might be the worst thing I've ever written. It's the one crossover literally no one asked for, because they all have common sense and know that there's no way out of this one.
> 
> Not that I disagree. I just want to see where this goes.  
> (Forgive me)

The Fault in our Starsigns  
By AcrylicMist

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my Bro decided that I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, did nothing but mix new beats at my turntables, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my free time thinking about death.

No shit, I told him. Nearly dying could do that to a man.

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effect of cancer. I’d say they were full of shit. Depression wasn’t a side effect of cancer- it was a side effect of nearly biting the dust at fifteen. But whatever, he wouldn’t listen and decided I needed treatment so like the responsible guardian he was, he took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and I also should attend a weekly support group. Yay me.

This support group featured a rotating cast of teens and younger kids in various stages of tumor-driven unwellness. It also had a smaller group for those who were unwell but didn’t actually have cancer, which I belonged to with a cast of other amputee kids who’d been hit by cars or survived chemo or whatever it was that made a doctor decide that this bullshit was a good treatment option.

This support group, of course, was depressing as hell. It met every Wednesday in the basement of a stone-walled church shaped like a cross, right where the heart of Jesus would have been.

I only noticed this because the group leader, who was the only person in the room over eighteen, would not shut up about this. He mentioned it every single meeting, about how we, as young cancer survivors and current cancer fighters and we unlucky souls whose parents left dinner on the stove while they were out grabbing booze and ended up burning off half their kid’s face or some shit, were all sitting right in Christ’s very sacred heart.

So here’s how it went in God’s heart: The six or seven of us walked/wheeled in, gazed at the decrepit selection of cookies and lemonade, sat down in the Circle of Trust, and listened to the group leader recount for the thousandth time his depressingly miserable life’s story- how he had cancer in his balls and they thought he was going to die but he didn’t die and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basement in the 137th nicest city in America, divorced, addicted to video games, mostly friendless, eking out a meager living by exploiting his cancertastic past, slowly working his way toward a master’s degree that will not improve his career prospects, waiting, as we all do, for the sword of Damocles to give him the relief that he escaped those many years ago when the cancer took both of his balls but spared what only the most generous souls would call his life.

AND YOU TOO MIGHT BE SO LUCKY!

I cannot express how much I hated these foul meetings. They all began the same. We introduced ourselves: Name. Age. Diagnosis. How we were doing today.

I’d say Dave when they got to me. 16. Osteosarcoma, but recovered and in remission minus one BTK amputation that took my right foot and leg. I was doing just fine, thank you very much, and also go fuck yourself. I never said this last part out loud, there were 12 year olds here, but the group leader could always read the words in my face and tone. Not that he cared. I was just another one of the doctor-ordered brats who’s future, while grossly shortened in some cases, was already far brighter than his.

Then came the circle-jerk of support; everyone talking about fighting and battling and winning and shrinking and scanning. To be fair, this might have been the one place where we could talk about dying. But, most of us weren’t dying. Most of us would live into adulthood, like he had, like I was certain to.

Not all of us in the group would be so lucky. Which meant there was a lot of competition about it, with everybody wanting not just to beat their cancer but each other. Like, I realize that this is irrational and depressing and probably counter-productive, but when you’re told that you only have a 20% chance of making it another 5 years, the math kicks in and you figure that’s a one-in-five chance… so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards. It’s logical, ya know?

The only redeeming facet of this support group was this kid my age named Sollux, a long faced, skinny guy with short black hair, an eyepatch over one eye, and a lisp.

It was his eyes that were the problem. He had some fantastically improbably eye-cancer, so fate must have been a bitch to him- the odds were that low. He had one eye cut out already, which is why he wore the eyepatch.

And to have fate screw him over a second time, his remaining eye was now in mortal peril, which sucked balls. I knew him from before, when we’d shared side-by-side beds in prep for surgery and afterwards for recovery. He’d been the only bright thing I could remember about those dark times. We’d laughed and made inappropriate jokes when his parents were out of earshot and fed into each other’s slightly neurotic ideals about dying and death and how taxation was theft.

Now Sollux and I communicated almost exclusively through sighs. Each time someone discussed anticancer diets or snorting ground-up shark fin or whatever new-age bullshit designed to give false hope, he’d glance over at me and sigh ever so slightly. I’d shake my head microscopically and exhale in response.

So, yeah, basically Support Group blew, and after a few weeks, I grew out of being nice about going. I became rather kicking-and –screaming about the whole affair. In fact, on the Wednesday I first became acquainted with Karkat Vantas, I tried to level my way out of going entirely.

My Bro had been watching America’s Next Top Model, which I’d seen already like five times, but still.

Me: I refuse to attend Support Group.

Bro: One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities.

Me: I’m interested in many activities. Attending Support Group and having my actual soul sucked out is sadly not one of them.

Bro: Don’t care. Doc’s orders. And you need to get out of the house. You need to make friends and live your life.

Me: If you want me to be a proper teenager, don’t send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot.

Bro: You don’t take pot, for starters. And pot’s a pansy drug. If you’re willing to experiment, pot’s alright, just stay away from cocaine and meth. Those two will fuck you up.

Me: See, that’s the kind of thing I would learn with a fake ID.

Bro: I’m not getting you a fake ID. And you’re going to support Group.

Me: UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

Bro: Dave, you deserve a life.

That shut me up, though I failed to see how attendance to Support Group met the definition for Life. Still, I agreed to go on the condition that I would have the TV for the rest of the afternoon when I got back.

I went to Support Group for the same reason I’d once allowed nurses with a mere 18 months of graduate education poison me with exotically named chemicals; I wanted to make my Bro happy.

There is only one thing shittier than having cancer at fifteen, and that’s being the guardian of a kid who had cancer at 15.

…

My Bro drove me over. I had my license but it always made him feel more parent-like to drive me. More involved and responsible and actively engaged with his teenage charge like all the self-help books he’d read told him.

I slammed the door on my way out harder than I should have. This wasn’t his fault; he was only doing the best he could.

“Don’t suck, Dave,” he said as a goodbye, then he floored it and was gone in a squealing of tires and foul smoke. I walked inside the building.

I didn’t want to take the elevator because that was seen as a Last Day’s kind of thing, so I took the stairs down even though I was unsteady still with my prosthetic and the jarring uneven steps irritated the stump that was all that remained of my leg. I grabbed a limp Wal-Mart cookie and a Dixie cup of lemonade and turned around.

A boy was staring at me.

I was quite sure I’d never seen him before. Solidly muscular, with broad shoulders and black hair that curled slightly into waves that fell into dark chocolate eyes. He looked my age, and he sat with his tailbone at the edge of the chair in a posture of aggressive protection as he sat, drawn into himself and brooding, and stoically refused to make eye contact with anyone else in the room.

I could respect that, and looked away before I could be caught staring. He was wearing a hoodie that swallowed his hands but still showed the lines of his body and I was abruptly reminded that I was a mess. I hadn’t even brushed my hair this morning and I quickly ran a few fingers through the snarl to at least flatten it down and straight. And yet- I cut a glance at him, and his eyes were still on me.

It occurred to me why they call it eye contact.

I walked into the circle and took a seat besides Sollux, across the circle from the new boy. I glanced again, he was still watching me.

Look, let me be 100% honest for a second: he was hot. It was rare for any attractive boys to breeze into Group Support and even rarer for them to stare directly at me.

Not that I was complaining. He was… Hot. My ears grew hot under his look and I pulled out my phone just to give myself an excuse to look away. Sollux elbowed me in the ribs and wiggled his visible eyebrow suggestively. I ignored him.

The circle finished filling in with its medically-induced prisoners and the group leader began his normal depressing prayer. - God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.- The guy was still staring at me. I was feeling an uncharacteristic blush building up and I squashed it down before my pale skin could betray me.

Finally, I decided that the proper response to his visible attack was to stare right back. It soon became a full-blown staring contest. After a while the boy dipped his chin in such a small movement I would have missed it entirely if I hadn’t been so intent on studying his face, and his eyes flickered away. When he looked back at me, I raised an eyebrow as if to say, I win.

He shrugged, his shoulders rising up and falling back down. The group leader continued to droll in the background before my attention snapped back to him as he called out time for introductions. “Sollux, maybe you’d like to go first today. I know you’re facing a challenging time.”

“Yeah,” Sollux said, “I’m Sollux. I’m seventeen. And it looks like I have to get surgery again in a couple of weeks, after which I’ll be permanently blind. Not to complain or anything, I know a lot of people have it worse, but being completely blind is going to suck balls, not going to lie.”

I withheld a small bit of laughter. From the looks on their faces you’d think it was illegal to make a cancer-joke or say anything remotely funny about your condition. Like anything that wasn’t bleak or depressing wasn’t alright because it interrupted the dreary aesthetic they had going. 

The group leader sighed and turned away, but I saw the new guy smile.

“We’re here for you Sollux,” the man said, bleakly and without feeling. The phrase echoed around the room as it was repeated by the rest of the circle.

Michael was next. He was 12. Lung cancer. He was okay. (Or so he said. He’d taken the elevator.)

Linda was next. She was 16 and pretty enough to be the object of Hot Guy’s attention. (She wasn’t.) She was a regular in long term remission appendicular cancer. There were five others with equally cancerous or debilitating illnesses before they got to him.

His voice was low and rough and oddly musical. Dead sexy.

“My name is Karkat Vantas,” he said, “I’m seventeen and I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Karkat,” the group leader sighed again. “I know it can be a hard thing to talk about your illness, but this circle is a safe place. We are all here for you.”

Karkat must have heard it for the bullshit it was, but he huffed and answered. “Leukemia. Diagnosed a year and a half ago.”

“And how are you feeling?” the group leader asked.

“Oh, I’m grand,” Karkat said without moving his lips, “I’m just peachy."

Then it was my turn. “Dave, seventeen, a touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago. I’m doing fine now.”

The hour proceeded like this: fights were recounted, battles won amid wars sure to be lost, hope was clung to, families were both celebrated and denounced, it was agreed that friends just didn’t get it, tears were shed, comfort provided, and neither I or Karkat Vantas said anything else the entire time.

Until the group leader said, “Karkat, perhaps you’d like to share your fears with the group.”

“My fears?”

“Yes.”

“I fear oblivion,” he said without pause, like he didn’t even have to think about it. “I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”

“Too soon,” Sollux croaked dramatically, swaying sideways and away from Karkat in moral offense.

“Was that insensitive?” Karkat asked, locking eyes with Sollux, “I can be pretty blind to other’s feelings.”

This time Sollux laughed and I did too. It was such a relief to hear laughter in the dark stone walls like this.

“Karkat please,” the group leader raised a hand and said, “Let’s return to you and your struggles. You said you fear oblivion?”

“I did,” Karkat answered, and he said nothing else.

The group leader seemed lost. “Would, uh, would anyone else like to speak to that?”

I was not a hand-raising type of guy, but just this once I had to speak out. The group leader was overly enthusiastic about my raised hand. “Dave!” I’m sure he thought I was opening up, finally giving in and becoming part of the Group, the Circle of Trust.

I looked straight at Karkat Vantas, who looked back at me like he was waiting for something, like it was a challenge. His eyes were so dark from this angle they looked pure black, like dark pools of void.  
“There will come a time,” I said, “When all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything we ever did and build and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”- I gestured encompassingly, “will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it’s in millions of years, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun we will not survive forever. There was a time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be a time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I highly encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

After I finished, there was a long period of silence as I watched the first true smile I’d seen break across Karkat Vantas’s face, not the crooked smile of contained smugness or retained aggression, but something true and open.

“Goddamn,” he said quietly, still looking dead at me.

The group leader looked like he was sorry I’d said anything. After that, no one else felt like saying anything else and we ended the meeting by holding hands in the actual Heart of Jesus as the group leader let us out in prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ, we are gathered here today in your heart, in your literal heart, as survivors and fighters. You and you alone know us as we know ourselves. Guide us to life and light and light our ways through times of trial. We pray for Sollux’s eye, for Michael’s lungs, for Karkat’s blood, for Dave’s bones, for Linda’s appendix. We pray that You might heal us and that we might feel Your love, and Your peace, which passes all understanding. And we remember in our hearts those whom we knew and loved who have gone home to you: Maria and Kade and Joseph and Haley and Abigail and Taylor and Gabriel and…”  
The list went on and on. The world contains a lot of dead people. And while the group leader droned on, reading from a sheet of paper because the list was too long to memorize, I kept my eyes firmly closed, trying to think prayerfully but mostly just being thankful that my name hadn’t found its way onto that list all the way at the end when everyone had stopped listening. Most weren’t so lucky.

When he had finished we hall said this stupid mantra together- LIVING OUR BEST LIFE TODAY- and it was over and I was free.

Karkat pushed himself out of his chair and turned away, but I quickly crossed the room and caught his sleeve. 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Karkat Vantas,” he said. “Yours?”

“Dave.”

“No, your full name.”

“Dave Elizabeth Strider.” I answered proudly. I was just about to say something else when Sollux walked up, his ironic/unironic red and blue glasses in place over his black eyepatch.

“I told you it was bleak as shit,” he said.

‘Then why the hell do you bother with it?” Karkat asked.

Sollux shrugged. “I don’t know. It kind of helps?”

“Hold up,” I said, looking between the two of them. “You two know each other?”

“Sure do,” Sollux said, “We go back a long time.”

“Asshole,” I complemented, “You never told me about Karkat.”

“And you’re not my mother, so you can fuck right off.” Sollux said, “I can have friends you don’t know about.”

“I’ll say,” Karkat said, “But he’s mentioned you a lot. That’s kind of the reason I let him drag me here.”

My ears perked up at that. Was he here for me?

“Anyway,” Sollux said, before I could comment, “Listen to this shit right here. This is what I’m dealing with. So, I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that I’d rather be deaf than blind. And he said, ‘it doesn’t work like that,’ and I was all, ‘yeah, I realize it doesn’t work like that; I’m just saying I’d rather be deaf than blind if given the choice, which I realize I don’t have,’ and he said, ‘well, good news is you won’t be deaf,’ so I said, ‘thank you for explaining that my eye cancer won’t make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.”

“He sounds like a winner,” I said. “I’m gonna try to get me some eye cancer just to make this guy’s acquaintance.”

He snorted. “Good luck with that. All right, I should go. Feferi’s waiting on me. I gotta go look at her a lot while I still can.”

“Counterinsurgence tomorrow?” Karkat asked.

“Same time as always,” Sollux confirmed. He took the stairs two at a time as he left.

Karkat Vantas turned to me. “Literally,” he said.

“Literally?” I asked.

“We are literally in the heart of Jesus,” he said, “And here I thought Sollux was just fucking with me, but no, we are literally in the heart of Jesus.”

“Someone should tell Jesus,” I said, “I mean, it’s gotta be dangerous, storing all us invalid cancer children in your heart.”

“I would tell him myself,” Karkat said conversationally, “But unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of his heart, so sadly he can’t hear me.” I laughed. He shook his head. Just looking at me with his chocolate eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

I could feel the tips of my ears turning red and promptly strangled my blush to death. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

A brief awkward silence ensued.

“Because,” he said, “I’m trying to decide if your eyes are really that color or if the drugs have made me hallucinate.”

I kind of scoffed or sighed or exhaled in a way that was vaguely coughy and then said, “Nope, they’re 100% legit.”

“Huh,” he said, squinting at them. “It’s like something out of a movie.”

“Which one?” I asked curiously.

He didn’t pause. “Pixie-haired girl dislikes authority and can’t help but fall for a boy she knows is trouble. It’s your autobiography. So far as I can tell.”

His every syllable flirted. Honestly, it was exhilarating.

“Haven’t seen it,” I said, swallowing.

“Good,” he said, “It sucked ass and I think they all turned out to be vampires. There are much better movies out there.”

“Are they all chick flicks?” I asked.

“It’s wasn’t a chick flick,” he said defensively. I let it slide.

“Okay,” I said, “Sounds fake but okay. I should look it up anyway, just in case.” 

“No,” he said suddenly, “Don’t look it up. Come see it. Now. With me.”

I stopped walking. “Really? Just like that you’re going to ask me out? What if I’m an axe murderer?”

“Seeing how you know Sollux I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a sociopath,” he said.

“I’ll give you that,” I said, continuing to walk. He followed after me, shoulders filling out his hoodie, back straight and broad. He followed me upstairs, the late afternoon light hurtful in its blinding too-bright loveliness after an hour spend underground. I slapped my shades on immediately after a few pained and squinting seconds of trying yet again to take the glare.

Bro wasn’t here yet; the asshole was always late to the point where if he’d been on time I would have been surprised. I glanced around and saw a wild-haired girl had Sollux pinned against the stone wall of the church and was kissing him rather aggressively. They were close enough I could hear each weird noise their mouths made together, and hear the girl whispering “Always,” whenever she came up for breath.

Karkat leaned closer. “They’re big believers in PDA. Disgusting.”

“What’s with the ‘always’?” The noise of wolves mauling a deer intensified.

“Always is their thing. They’ll always love each other and whatever. I would conservatively estimate they have texted the word always four million times in the last year.”

A couple more cars drove up, taking more kids away. It was just me and Karkat now, watching Sollux and Feferi nearly maul each other’s faces.

“Imagine taking that last drive to the hospital,” I said quietly. “The last time you’ll ever drive a car.”

Without looking over at me, Karkat said, “You’re killing my vibe. I’m trying to observe young love in all its many-splendored awkwardness.”

“I think he’s hurting her boob,” I said.

“Well, it’s probably the other thing he’s grabbed recently besides a computer mouse,” he said.

I reached into my pocket absent-mindedly and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I tapped one out and put it to my lips.

Karkat’s eyes grew wide. “Are you serious?” he asked, “Are you fucking serious? You think that’s cool? Oh my God, you just ruined the whole thing.”

“Which whole thing,” I asked, because a part of me was enjoying his anger. His clenched jaw highlighted his jawline and his face was far too open to hide anything.

“The whole thing where a guy who is not unattractive or unintelligent or seemingly in any way unacceptable stares at me and flirts back and is okay when I ask him out. But of course there has to be a hamartia and yours is that oh, my fucking God, even though you had fucking cancer you give money to a company in exchange for a chance to acquire yet more cancer. Oh my God. Let me tell you something, just in case you forgot. Having cancer? It SUCKS.”

“A hamartia? I asked, the cigarette still perched lightly between my teeth.

“A fatal flaw,” he explained, nostrils flared, and he turned away from me.

“Wait,” I said, jogging to catch up with him. I felt this weird mix of disappointment or anger to match his welling up inside of me, I didn’t even know what this feeling was, but I wasn’t going to let it end here. “They don’t kill unless you light them.” I said, and he slowly turned back to me. “And I’ve never lit one. It’s ironic, right? You put the killing thing right between your teeth but you don’t give it the power to kill you.”

“Irony?” he asked.

“Kind of like a metaphor,” I said. “We all fight how we can.”

“You choose your behavior based off of semi-ironic metaphorical resonances…” he said slowly.

“Hell yes,” I said, and there it was, that same open smile from before. “I am a great student of the ironic arts.”

Karkat's eyes narrowed, but the tension left his shoulders and his jaw loosened again. I could tell he was intrigued. I offered him a small smile, and he kind of maybe smiled back. 

My bro finally pulled up dangerously close to the curb and idled beside us in his orange bug. I tapped at the window until it rolled down.

“I am going to a movie with Karkat Vantas,” I told him, “TV’s yours tonight.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say I'll update next week and not in three days? Yeah I have zero self-control so here's another early chapter.  
> Really though, mid-terms. Chapter three might take until the end of the week because I need to study and not write, but I will post it as soon as it's done.

Chapter two.

I was sitting in the front seat of the car of a near-stranger on the way over to his house to watch a movie and the only thing I could think of to say was, “You drive nice.”

Karkat grunted, smoothly merging into the next lane. He even used the blinker. Amazing. 

“I failed the driving test three times,” I said stupidly, my mouth running ahead before my common sense could restrain it.

“Really?” Karkat asked curiously.

I felt the need to explain, so he wouldn’t think I was just a crap driver.

“I can’t feel pressure with old Prosty, and driving with my left foot just seems altogether too heathenistic for me. I know most amputees can drive without a problem, but I’m still getting the hang of it. I nearly gave the driving instructor whiplash the last time.”

“And they gave you a license?” he asked, “I suspect a cancer perk.”

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted. Normally I was against anything even slightly resembling a cancer perk, but I needed a license, I needed some way t get out of the house on my own, and for once I hadn’t complained.

“They have hand controls for those who can’t use their legs,” Karkat was helpful to point out.

“I know, I said, “Maybe someday.”

Then Karkat sighed, like he doubted the existence of a someday. Leukemia. They say the survival rate was as high as 60-70%, but really it was more like 50-/50. Or lower. I couldn’t spot any oxygen tanks or anything, but that didn’t prove the existence of a someday.

I used the classic question. There are a number of ways to establish someone’s approximate survival expectations without actually asking, and I used one of these now. “So, are you in school?”

Generally, your parents pull you out of school at some point of they expect you to bite it. GPA’s don’t matter to the dying.

“Yeah,” he said, and I felt like I could breathe easier, “Skia high. I’m a year behind though.”

“Me too,” I said, “Not Skia though, Derse. I’m a year behind too.”

“I’m glad it’s summer then,” Karkat said, “I actually miss the time when I didn’t have to think about school.”

“Odd thing is, I think I do too.” I answered honestly. “Much less stress, and I such at math.”

The car in front of us slammed suddenly on brakes, and all I saw was the red of their too-close tail lights. Karkat didn’t bother stopping, just lazily switched lanes while I nearly had a heart attack.

“Holy shit,” I said, “I take it back. I’m not the worst driver anymore. That award goes to the asshole in the minivan.”

“So,” Karkat asked, “Osteosarcoma?” I forgot about the minivan. This was serious now.

“I was lucky,” I said quietly, “I mean, sure, I nearly died. Everyone thought I was going to die, but the cancer was successfully sliced out of me and now I’m 1/5 less of a person but at least I’m cancer free.”

“Right leg?”

“Yes. I was fifteen.”

“That sounds like it sucks,” Karkat commented as he made a turn into what appeared to be an ordinary cookie-cutter subdivision. He parked before the third house in the row and cut the car off.

“At least I was never into sports,” I said, to fill the silence left by the now quiet car. “Can you imagine if I was? I’d be stepping over torsos of the prostrate left and right, all weeping about my lost potential and carrying around little golden memorials to my lost limb.”

That one made him smile. “I suppose you should know,” he said, talking about himself. “Leukemia. Diagnosed a little over a year ago. It’s the normal type of AML, supposed to be highly curable, but still…” he shuddered. “It’s scary, not knowing.”

I knew what that was like. In a way, he hope was worse than any blade or bleak prognosis or kindly sad but professional doctors saying the words three months to live and meaning that as optimistic. Not knowing, that was a bitter bitch. 

“I’ve known a few AML’s before.” I said, mainly to comfort him, “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Karkat said.  
…

 

I followed him inside. His house was filled with religious paraphernalia. The eyes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary followed me everywhere, and crucifixes were attached to all of the available wall space. It looked like Sunday Mass had vomited all over the house.

“Yeah,” Karkat said, somewhat embarrassed, “My dad’s a collector.”

His dad was in the kitchen.

“Karkat,” he called out, “is that you?”

We walked over.

“This is Dave Strider,” Karkat said by way of introduction.

“Hey,” I said, “Nice to meet you.”

His dad blinked, and I realized that I was still wearing my shades. I kept them on.

“Oh,” he said, and he was tall and broad shouldered and wearing a frilly apron as he mixed flour in a bowl.

A noise from the corner made my head turn. A different boy, older than Karkat but wearing a similar face, slapped the top of his laptop shut and glared at us until Karkat flicked him off.

“Karkat,” his dad sighed, but decided against pursuing the topic. “How was Sollux’s support group?”

“Bleak and soul-sucking,” Karkat said without pause. His dad sighed again.

“Dave, did you like it?” he asked, addressing me. i didn't ask how he knew that's where we'd met. I probably had the words PAST CANCER KID stamped across my forehead in red, or maybe he'd seen the glint of metal at my ankle as my pants leg rode up an inch or so, the material loose and floppy.

“Most of the people are really nice,” I said, a generic and boring response that I knew would please him.

“That’s exactly what we’ve found with the people through Memorial,” His dad said, “Everyone is so strong and kind. In the darkest days, the Lord puts the brightest people into your life.”

A muscle in Karkat’s eye was beginning to twitch, but he hid it quite well with a plastic smile that managed to not look painful.

“We’re going to watch a movie in the basement,” Karkat said, leading me by the arm out of the overly church-like kitchen that smelled like warm yeast rising and cinnamon. The other teen continued to glare silently at me the entire time as I followed Karkat downstairs.

The basement was a huge single room, mostly filled with unused furniture and shelves and shelves of books. One wall had a massive cross hanging from it, complete with a carved depiction of an angelic Jesus with blood dripping from his hands.

“Hardcore,” I said, “your dad doesn’t fuck around.”

“It’s worse than you think,” Karkat said, determinedly hunting around in a box of old DVD’s and cassettes, “He made that one himself.”

I let out a whistle and looked at the huge cross again, taking in the little details.

“That’s kind of what he does,” Karkat said, “He travels around a lot and makes them for various churches. It’s actually a pretty good gig. One like that,” he motioned to the wall cross, “Can sell for ten thousand easily.”

“I never really thought about where churches get these from,” I said, “Guess now I know.”

“Well,” Karkat said, then lifted out a DVD without a cover triumphantly, “Found it.”

I leaned close to look at the title. Easy A.

“And… that’s chick flick,” I said, unsurprised. “I knew it.”

“This is not a chick flick,” Karkat said, hugging the DVD to his chest. “This is a cinematic masterpiece depicting the social norms of modern high school and about rebelling against them as an outcast.”

“I’m not complaining,” I said, quickly, “I’ll watch it with you. I’m always down for rebelling against the social norms.”

“Good,” He said, “So, do you have any siblings?”

The question caught me off-guard. “What?”

“Siblings,” He repeated. “I’m sure you saw my brother Kankri upstairs. He’s only two years older but acts like he’s old and mature.”

“Naw,” I said, “I’m an only child.” I paused, unsure how to word this, “I don’t really have parents. My Bro raised me, but he’s not my real brother or anything. It’s complicated.”

“I’m listening,” Karkat said as he booted up a small TV set. Static flashed across the screen.

“Well,” I started, “I don’t have actual known parents. I was dumped in an alley like a stray cat in a children’s movie. I had my own cardboard box and all.” Karkat shot me a sharp look of surprise, but I continued. “My Bro happened to wander by and found me before I froze or starved or had rats gnaw off my feet. He turned me in, and the judge gave him the option of adopting me. She was a big believer in fate and God and what it came down to in the end was finders-keepers.”

I sat down on the edge of an old couch. “I could be a superhero,” I said, “I have a working tragic background story already in place.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure about that,” Karkat said, taking in my smug grin as I claimed 3/4ths of the couch. “You are a walking tragedy. The cancer’s just an added bonus.”

“What can I say?” I asked, “I will never not find a way to make my own life a joke. There’s just too much potential there to be wasted.”

“Hm,” Karkat said, and the screen finally lit up.

…

 

We watched the entire movie with several inches of space between us and on screen a variety of different outfits and scandals and teen drama ran by. I was hyper-aware of the space between us, but neither of us did anything to break the invisible wall drawn by the edge of the faded couch cushion. 

“Pretty great, huh?” Karkat asked me when the credits rolled. I nodded, though I hadn’t really been paying attention by that point. Something about how true love conquers all or some trophy chick-flick shit.

“You know, I know that love conquers all shit is lame and a goddamn lie, but admit it, seeing it on screen makes me not hate the phrase so much.” Karkat admitted quietly, still staring at the screen.

I might not have paid attention to the last part of the film, but that part I could somewhat understand.

“It’s meant to be comforting,” I said.

“I know,” he answered sadly, “Too bad we both know it’s never true in real life.”

He drove me home after not much longer. His dad reappeared to say bye and wish me well and all the way back Karkat listened to a CD Sollux had given him. It was a new one, and neither of us had heard the songs before so we spent the time judging the shit out of every smallest thing. It was kind of a blast.

I hadn’t enjoyed an afternoon like this in a while. Pre-amputation at the very least.

He put the car in park outside of my apartment building. “I’d invite you in,” I said, “but the elevator’s broken and there’s exactly 413 stairs between here and my door.”

“You’ve got one leg and you climb 413 stairs a day?”

“Several times a day,” I clarified smugly. “Sometimes I do it for the sheer hell of it. It’s living irony.”

“You know,” Karkat said, “I’m beginning to doubt your sanity.”

“Welcome to the club,” I said, then slowed down and gave him a searching look, making sure that this was okay. “Next time, I get to pick the movie.”

“Next time?” he raised his eyebrows, and I felt my face begin to heat up. God, was he going to make me say it out loud? Yes,Karkat, I'm asking you on a date don't make this anymore embarrassing than it already was...

“Next time.” I said firmly, “Unless you come to your senses and realize I’m just a douchebag with a shitty taste in movies.”

“I might need some warning then,” he said. “What’s your favorite movie?”

I paused. My favorite movie was, beyond a doubt, A Jester’s Throne. It was this obscure 1940’s noir that literally no one knew existed. I didn’t like to tell people about it. Sometimes, you read a book or see a movie and it fills you with shattered fanatical zeal so you want to ensure that every living person on the planet as seen it and the world will never be complete until this impossible feat is accomplished. And then there are things like A Jester’s Throne, which you can’t tell people about, something so special and rare and so utterly yours its like offering up a slice of your own soul served warm, raw, and vulnerable. Sharing that film almost felt like a betrayal. Its words were my words, its thoughts my thoughts. It was practically ensconced within the folds of my own personal mythology by this point. 

Even so, I told Karkat. “My favorite film is A Jester’s Throne.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” He said, “Does it feature romance?”

“No.”

“Fighting?”

“It’s not that kind of film,” I said.

“What’s it about?” he asked, and I shook my head, lips sealed.

He smiled. “I am going to find this movie and watch it for myself.” He said, and I immediately felt like I shouldn’t have told him about it. What if he watched it, and didn’t understand? What if, even worse, he didn’t like it?

“All I ask is that in turn, you watch my favorite movie,” he said, holding out a hastily scribbled title on a scrap of paper. Our hands kind of got muddled together in the handoff. His fingers were cold and he snatched them back quickly when they brushed against my skin.

“An Imperial Affliction?” I read off of the scrap of paper, written all in caps.

“It’s not a chick-flick. This time, I promise.” He said, his hands tight on the steering wheel so that his knuckles were white. “I’m serious.”

“We just met and we’re already sharing favorite movies,” I said, “How do I call you? You know, for later?”

He flipped the paper over onto the back and scribbled out a scratchy number in blocky writing.

I held onto it tightly. “I don’t have anything to write on,” I admitted, and Karat was out of paper in his clean vehicle.

I ended up scrawling the number across his palm in felt market, and the moment felt closer than it should have. It was just ink on skin, the faint promise of a next time, but the contact left my fingers tingling and I held the tiny scrap of paper close to me as I watched him drive away


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three is up, and expect the fourth one within the next 24-36 hours. Its my spring break right now and even working every day I should be able to write more.

Chatter three.

I stayed up pretty late that night reading An Imperial Affliction. (Spoiler alert: the imperial affliction was, guess what, cancer.) It cost two dollars to buy the virtual copy online, and it wasn’t like what I expected from a cancer book. Not even by a little bit.

I was normally an early waker, but I’d been up late last night with Karkat’s book so I indulged in some quality late morning sleep and drug myself out of bed and carefully strapped on my prosthetic in search of food around one in the afternoon.

“Thought you’d sleep till four,” Bro called, his back to me as he fiddled with his X-Box from the couch as I fail to creep silently past on my way to the kitchen.

“The best part of summer is sleeping in,” I grumbled, not really coherent until I’d eaten.

“Jade called,” Bro said, still not really paying attention to me as I dropped a bowl on the ground with a clatter, “Wants to hang, I guess.”

I grunted at him and fished the bowl from the floor, pouring the milk for some cereal and grabbing a spoon. “I’ll call her later,” I said, and just like that our conversation was over. Both of us had used up all of our words, and we had nothing left to offer the conversation. The noise of the X-Box, all techo bursts and pings and the rapid chatter of fake gunfire, filled in the silence behind me. 

I ate quickly and went back to my room. I logged onto my computer and pulled up Pesterchum.

TurntechGodhead began pestering GardenGnostic at 1:34 pm.

TG- hey jade bro said you’d called

TG- whats up?

The screen lit up with green as Jade answered.

GG- Dave!

GG- Do you know what day it is?

TG- Thursday?

GG- no silly, not just Thursday. It’s your 33rd half-birthday!

I internally groaned. Jade began this tradition back when my prognosis was bleak and she stuck to it even though I was better now.

GG- We must celebrate, of course. It’s your Birthday! How about we meet up and hang together?

TG- Jade, you do know that I don’t really need half-birthdays anymore right?

TG- now I’m not saying that it isn’t sweet and cool of you but its kind of morbid when you think about it.

TG-by this point ive celebrated more birthdays that 99.9% of other teens my age. Im going to overdose on cake and cheap frosting.

GG- haha, nice try. Meet us at the mall at three alright?

TG- us?

TG-Jade what are you planning?

GG- Nothing! John will be there too is all. Is that alright, or are you still paranoid?

TG- nope, my paranoia knows no mortal bounds.

TG- I’ll be there anyway, once I fight off my instinctive urge to throw a hissy fit and claim that the CIA is reading this as we speak.

TG- back of, NSA, I’ve got nothing on my hard drive besides ironic shitty art and my bro’s expansive pornography collection. You’ll have to pull the password info from my cold dead fingers you sick fuckers

GG- Dave, 

GG- Porn? Really?

TG- Its not mine I swear. I’m innocent of such vile sin.

GG- -_-

GG- anyway, I’ll see you soon!

GardenGnostic ceased pestering TurntechGodhead at 1:55 pm.

…

I made it to the mall right before three. Bro dropped me off and left to terrorize the Spencer’s cashiers or some shit. He was a weird guy, my Bro.

I found Jade and John at a food court table, both of them dressed in blue. John had a cake with him, the words ‘happy 33rd Dave’ across the top in white icing.

“My dad made it,” John explained, and Jade squealed and threw her arms around me.

“Dave!” she said, “It feels like we haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Well,” I answered as she squeezed my ribs hard enough to cut off my breath, “it is summer, so I don’t have class with you anymore.” Her wild black hair was all up in my face. It tickled my nose. 

“True,” she sniffed, letting me go. I snuck in a deep breath when she wasn’t looking. “But you haven’t hung out with us since school ended, all you do is sulk in your apartment with your Bro.”

She wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, trying to shrug off her valid concern at my reclusive behavior. “I’ll try to hang more often, alright?”

She seemed satisfied with the offer, and John cut the cake. Jade wanted to bring out candles and sing and everything, but I reminded her we were in a crowded mall food court.

Then we celebrated my 33rd half birthday, ate cake, and eventually we parted ways again with the promise to meet up again soon after a half-dozen failed starts at meaningful conversation.

That was the thing, though. Ever since I’d nearly died I felt like all of the dialogue between us was unnatural and forced. My mind kept drifting to that unfinished chapter of Karkat’s book and John was naturally awkward and he tiptoed around anything that might remind me of the time I’d had cancer, and since this was a 33rd birthday celebration that was all Jade had wanted to talk about.

Me. My heath. How was I feeling lately? Like if anyone out there had the balls to doubt my miraculous recovery it was her, and not even me. It made my skin crawl, and in between Jade’s prying into the subject of my missing limb and John trying to avoid mentioning it like cancer was catching I was going out of my mind in a very real but private way.

I liked being alone. I liked my solitude. I liked staying in my room and mixing beats and drawing shitty SBAHJ comics and pretending that I’d been given a second chance that people would die for.

And they had. Died for, that is.

And maybe, I wasn’t worthy of the future I’d been given like a gift from on high that had come after I’d already given up. But the killing thing about cancer is what you want doesn’t matter. It never does.

…

That night, I pulled the blankets high over me and sat down to finish reading An Imperial Affliction.

The thing about this story was, while the main character gets this rare type of blood cancer, it isn’t a cancer book, which was a good thing because every single cancer book sucked. All of them. Without exception.

Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, and this commitment to the charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes them feel loved/encouraged/hopeful because even when they die their memory as a cancer curing legacy will live on.

An Imperial Affliction is not like that. Not even a little.

In AIA, Anna (the cancertastic heroine) decided that being a person with cancer and starting a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic and instead starts a charity for people with cancer who want to cure Cholera.  
It’s just ironic enough that the point isn’t lost on me.

So I’m sitting in my bed, tearing through these last chapters of the book as Anna starts this crazy new treatment regimen that involves wheat grass and low doses of arsenic and she’s getting sicker and sicker and then it just….

Stops.

Mid fucking sentence.

The reality take a second to sink in as nothing but a blank page stares back at me and abruptly I’m furious. I wanted to throw the virtual screen across the room if I wasn’t afraid of breaking it. 

What kind of book doesn’t even have a fucking ending? I know it’s a literal choice and really drives home the fact of the suddenness of death and that when people die they leave all of their hopes and dreams behind them unfinished like these shards of broken glass the rest of us walk around and try to avoid cutting our ever-bleeding feet on, and I understand that it’s because Anna died or got too sick to keep writing but COME ON.

Suddenly, as I lay there in bed, I imagined Karkat reading these exact same words and getting to the point where the ink just runs out. I imagined him getting to where the main character finally is killed by her rare blood cancer and leaves everything a shattered fucking mess behind her as she goes.

Suddenly I need to talk to him, the urge strong and vicious beneath my skin as I fumbled for my phone and pulled up his ChumHandle.

TurntechGodhead began pestering CarcinoGeneticist at 11:56 pm.

TG- look I know its late and that this is the first time I’ve ever pestered you before, but I just finished that fucking book you told me about so I need you to get your ass into this chat log right the hell now

It took less than 30 seconds for him to reply. 

CG- I WOULD ASK WHO THE FUCK YOU WERE, BUT THERE’S REALLY ONLY ONE OPTION AS TO WHO THE HELL IS INSOLENT ENOUGH TO BARGE INTO MY CHATLOGS LIKE A FUCKING FREIGHTRAIN.

TG- Yeah I know, its me, its dave you can quite complaining

TG- now lets get down to the business of this late night conversation- an imperial affliction

TG-what the actual fuck just happened?

CG-DID YOU FINISH THE BOOK?

CG- ALL THE WAY TO THE END?

TG- yeah if you can call that an ending. Seriously, what the actual hell was that?

CG- DID YOU LIKE IT?

TG- yeah, I really did. Anna and her family and the charity that wasn’t for cancer and her cute as fuck hamster and the whole gang. I only have like eighty million complaints and they all center in on a single sentence. Oh but wait- it isn’t even a whole sentence!

CG- YEAH, I KNOW THE FEELING EXACTLY.

CG- I GET THAT ITS REALISTIC AND POWERFUL IN ITS OWN RIGHT, BUT I’M MAD AS HELL.

CG- I HAVE HATED THAT ENDING WITH A HATE THAT BURNS HOT ENOUGH TO START ACTUAL FIRES FOR THREE YEARS. THREE YEARS. AND I EVEN STOOPED TO EMAILING THE SHITTY AUTHOR HIMSELF TO FIND ANSWERS, BUT HES SOME KIND OF DUMBFUCK RECLUSE WHO FLED THE COUNTRY AFTER PUBLISHING THE BOOK TEN YEARS AGO.

TG- holy shit really? He fled the country?

CG- YES. FUCKING COWARD.

TG- I’m just sitting here screaming OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS

CG- EXACTLY!

CG- AS MUCH AS I RESPECT HIM FOR ACCURATELY PORTRAYING THE END OF HER LIFE, I AM LEFT WITH QUESTIONS THAT WILL NEVER BE ANSWERED AND THAT PAIN IS ALMOST AS BAD AS KNOWING WHAT ITS LIKE TO GO THROUGH…

CG- CANCER, I GUESS. HE REALLY TELLS IT REAL, YOU KNOW?

TG- I noticed. Got all into the dark and gory without apologizing or withholding, but at the same time without making that the point of it all.

TG- I can respect the hell out of that, but I’m still mad as fuck about its lack of a proper ending.

I decided to switch subjects.

TG- hey Karkat, did you finish my book yet or what

CG- UHHH, NO. I HAVN’T FINISHED IT YET. ITS OVER 500 PAGES LONG.

TG- what do you think of it?

CG- OH NO YOU DON’T. I’M WITHOLDING MY JUDGEMENT OF A JESTER’S THRONE COMPLETELY UNTIL I HAVE REACHED THE END.

TG- you’ll call me when you finish reading it, right?

TG- not that you have to or that I even want you too or you know what I’ll just shut the fuck up now before I choke on my own foot

CG- PLEASE.

CG- BUT YES, I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I FINISH IT, ALRIGHT?

TG- sweet man, I guess I’ll talk to you then

CG- NO SPOILERS, OR I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.

TG- naw, I’m not a villain. I’ll leave you in peace until you finish it, or until you should have finished it by my opinion. Your 24 hours starts right now.

CG- DAVE WHAT THE FUCK.

TG- see you then Karkat!!! Hope you read fast

TurntechGodhead ceased pestering CarcinoGeneticist at 12:49 pm.

CG- FUCKER.

CarcinoGeneticist ceaced pestering TurntechGodhead at 12:50 pm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we start the beginning of cannon divergence. The first chapters kept to the original TFIOS story line, but its about to take a Davekat spin even more than it has already.  
> That's a good thing, right? You don't want to read a story where you already know what's going to happen...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I ever update at not 4 in the morning? Probably not.  
> Anyway, here's chapter four.

When I woke up the next day I had four unread messages from Karkat.

CarcinoGenetisist began pestering TurntechGodhead at 3:40 am.

CarcinoGenetisist- DAVE, WHAT THE HELL KIND OF BOOK DID YOU GIVE ME?

CG-WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUUUUUCCK.

CG- DAVE.

CG- CALL ME WHEN YOU CAN I NEED ANSWERS AND YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE THEM TO ME OR I WILL TRACK YOU DOWN AND RIP THEM FROM YOUR SHITTY GODDAMN FINGERS PERSONALLY. ASSHOLE.

Carcinogenetisist ceased pestering TurntechGodhead at 3:44 am. 

I called him right away, still groggy from sleep but eager to hear his voice. He answered after the fourth ring, just when I was beginning to lose hope that he’d answer and it would doom me to leaving a rambling and awkward bullshitting message like a bombshell in his voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Sup Karkat. I heard you finished the book.”

“Yes. I did, and I want nothing more than to tear into the finer details of this god fucking dammed shitshow of a storyline, but I’m kind of tied up at the moment.” His voice was, quite frankly, pissed. 

I could hear the sounds of crying in the background, loud muffled sniffling and wet coughs that immediately set aside me instinctive urge to jump to the defense of my favorite book. I sat up straighter and held the phone closer to me.

“Karkat? Is everything alright?” I asked, concern overtaking the last of my drowsiness. 

I heard him snap something snippy and sarcastic off-phone, and then he was back to growling at me.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” He said quickly. More wailing. Like the death cries of some injured animal. 

“Dude, what the fuck?” I asked pleasantly.

“It’s Sollux,” Karkat explained, “His girlfriend dumped him and he’s at my place and taking it hard.”

More crying, followed the crash of something breaking and a muffled curse from Karkat.

“Hey,” I said, “Sollux is my friend too. Is there some way I can help?”

“One second,” he said, and I heard “Sollux, Sollux focus. Is it alright if Dave comes over?” followed by a break in the sniffling that might have been an answer and then Karkat was back.

“Sure,” he said, “You can help.”

“Great,” I answered, “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said, then I hung up.

…

His dad let me in.

“Dave, it’s nice to see you again,” he said.

“Karkat invited me,” I explained, shrugging as I stood slouched in their doorway in shades and a red sleeved shirt.

“Yeah, he and Sollux are in the basement,” Karkat’s dad said, slowly shaking his head. There was a wail from below. “That would be Sollux,” he said wincing.

I was kind of hesitant to go down those narrow stairs. Listening to people howl in misery was not one of my favorite pastimes, but hell, the things I do for friends…

The stairs were harder to navigate with my prosthesis than most stairs. They were uneven and sloped downward in unexpected places and forced me to really focus on where I set each step.

The sounds of torment grew louder as I drew nearer to the basement floor.

“Dave, is that you?” I heard Karkat call out, “Just a fair warning, Sollux is in the midst of a psychotic episode.”

“I’ll consider myself warned,” I answered, right before I stepped into the basement.

Karkat and Sollux were side by side before the TV, the split screen showing a bombed out city swarming with videogame soldiers carrying guns bigger than their own bodies. It didn’t look to unusual, just two guys playing videogames washed in the light of the television while they pretended to kill people, until I got closer and caught sight of Sollux’s face.

Tears streamed down his blotchy face, and his normally pale skin looked sallow and unhealthy in the dim lighting, the face of pain and mortal anguish. He didn’t look at me, instead pounding away at his controller as onscreen somebody exploded and he let out another howl.

Karkat cut his eyes over at me in greeting, still mostly focused on not dying from an ambitious sniper. “Hey Dave, sorry the circumstances are not the greatest.”

“Its fine,” I said, waving away his explanations, “It’s all cool, and Sollux man, it looks like you’re being outflanked.”

He grunted, and Karkat answered. “If you insist on playing so recklessly, at the very least have the decency to let me cover you.” A blare of fake gunfire, and he said, “If you make it to that power station we can meet up and counter-attack.”

“I would offer words of sage advice,” I said, “But his reaction seems appropriate.”

Karkat nodded, “pain demands to be felt,” he said, and I recognized the quote from An Imperial Affliction. “You sure there’s no one behind us?” he asked Sollux, and right after that tracer shots began streaming overhead. “Goddammit Sollux,” Karkat complained.

“I don’t see why the fuck you’re complaining about my playing,” Sollux said, “Whose idea was it to hide in the power station?”

“Fuck off,” Karkat replied hotly, blasting away at fictional villains with machinegun fire.

“They’re taking the school,” Sollux warned, “Bastards!”

“No the fuck they aren’t,” I said, jumping into the gaming dialogue, “Get them, don’t let the bastards win!”

“Cover me!” Karkat yelled, his tiny figure onscreen sprinting full-speed towards the school with Sollux trailing after, blasting away with incredibly precise gunfire.

“GRENADE!” I yelled as something small rolled onscreen.

“Not on my fucking watch,” Karkat growled, and with a final flurry of furious button pushing he dove onto the grenade, which detonated on beneath him. His dismembered corpse exploded with a geyser of blood and gore and the screen went red.

A throaty voice proclaimed “MISSION FAILED,” with a hint of derisive smugness and condescension.

Karkat cursed and looked at Sollux, “another round?” he asked.

Sollux shook his head no. he leaned over Karkat to look at me with his eye, his 3-D glassed neatly tucked into the collar of his shirt. “She didn’t want to do it after,” he said.

“She didn’t want to dump a blind guy,” I said gently, letting out an understanding breath. “That sucks balls, man.”

He nodded, his tears not like tears so much as a quiet metronome- steady, endless.

“She said she couldn’t handle it,” he told me, “I’m about to lose my eyesight and SHE can’t handle it.”

“I’m sorry dude,” I said.

“it’s unacceptable,” Karkat said, angry and on edge without a target to take it out on. “Completely unnacceptible.”

“Well, to be fair,” I said, “She probably can’t handle it. Neither can you, but she doesn’t have to handle it. And you do.”

“I kept saying ‘always,’ to her,” he said miserably, “But she just kept talking over me and not saying it back. It was like I was already gone to her, like she was already over me. ‘Always’ was a promise! How can you just break a promise?”

“Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said, and Karkat shot me a sharp look while Sollux snorted.

“Right,” Sollux said, “of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love IS. Love is keeping the promise anyway, right?” he asked, looking from both me and Karkat helplessly. “Don’t you believe in true love?”

Did I? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer, but if true love did exist, I thought that was a pretty damn good definition of it.

“Well, I believe in true love,” Sollux said.

“I guess it just wasn’t her then,” Karkat said hopefully, “You’ll meet the right person someday, I’m sure of it.”

Sollux let out another wail and I nearly jumped out of my skin with the sound of it.

“I thought she was the right person,” he said thickly, his throat full of tears, “I loved Feferi.” He collapsed onto the couch, hugging a dusty pillow to his face to muffle his cries.

“Just let him work it out,” I offered, “these things can take time.”

Karkat sighed in agreement and stood up.

“You know,” he said, “I can’t stop thinking about that book. A Jester’s Throne.”

“What do you think about it?” I asked curiously.

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure,” Karkat admitted. “There’s a lot of clashing timelines and restarts and I’m not sure what to make of some parts just yet.”

“That’s alright,” I told him, “I didn’t get it the first time either.”

“It’s… complicated. Highly intricate.” He complemented, “And the language is beautiful.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I said, and Karkat smiled a little.

“One thing’s for sure,” he said, “I have never been so thoroughly fucked by a book before.”

“I know, I understand you completely,” I assured him.

“It’s so unexpected,” Karkat said incredulously, “the better you are at reading, the more you understand foreshadowing and plot devices and structures of stories, the worse it fucks you. It’s unreal in its capacity to leave me holy stumped and cursing all of creation.”

The book was about a time traveler, who upon discovery of his time traveling abilities embarks of a journey to fix all the wrongs of the world and get things on the right track again. Every smallest decision comes around in the end to completely fuck him over as timelines collide and his unwitting mistakes compound and grow until the entire plotline is taken away from him and speeds towards its own destruction. Time itself is personified as a character and I always sympathized with the protagonist. I’m not sure why, but I felt for him.

“Yep, that sounds about right,” I said, grinning in victory.

“But at the same time as these sweeping and beautifully written scenes, it’s pretty fucking dark at times,” Karkat said, “And there’s never a happy ending. It’s not clear what happens to him at the end, but that’s the point, isn’t it? We’re the fools, and we get no throne.”

“Time’s a bitch,” I said, “You screw with her, she takes everything from you and at the end there’s nothing left. Just… oblivion.”

“It’s very realistic,” Karkat said, “I see why you like it so much.”

“The ending is bleak as fuck,” I said, “There’s no one and nothing left, just him in a dead timeline alone with the knowledge that time is racing away without him to its eventual end. Hopeless, bereaved, and desperate to fix things.”

“But he might do it,” Karkat said suddenly, “That’s how it ends. He goes back one last time, all the way to the beginning.”

“But it ends first,” I reminded him, “We don’t know it that would have even worked, or if it was too little too late. Ironically, the very fact that he has time powers will always screw him over no matter if he resets the timeline at the ends and erases all further instances of himself. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Karkat let out a low whistle. “And here I thought there was a chance at a happy ending.”

“Not everyone gets those,” I said, “not even time travelers.”

Sollux’s wailing increased in volume, and he let out another loud cry as he ripped the pillow in half. Feathers went everywhere.

“Shit, yes.” Karkat said, whipping around at the sound of tearing cloth, “I hated that fucking pillow.”

Sollux ripped the cover again, tearing it long ways with a heave.

“That’s the thing about pain,” Karkat said, turning back to me over the sound of popping threads and rending fabric. “It demands to be felt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: A Jester's Throne is not a real book. I made it up. The title is from an unfinished fic I'm working on and the basic plotline contains references to homestuck time players in general. That's all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter five is up and running!

Chapter five.

I didn’t speak to Karkat for a week after that night. It wanted to call him, but I’d called first the last time so as per tradition it was his turn to call. But he didn’t.

I tried not to think too hard about why.

I ate dinner with Bro, or as close to it as we came. What I meant is, I microwaved a Hotpocket at 3am and he just happened to be eating a TacoBell burrito at the same time from the couch and I nodded at him and he nodded back and just like that he was gone again. The guy moved like a shadow, always there but utterly intangible and always out of reach.

It didn’t bother me any; I was used to it.

When Karkat finally called back, I nearly dove to where my phone lay on my bedspread. Not even a pester or text from him for a week, and I’ll admit I was desperate to hear his voice again as I fumbled for the phone and accidentally hung up on the call rather than answer it when my thumb brushed against the touchscreen.

I stared at the black screen for a moment, my own face the only thing reflected back.

“Fuck,” I sighed, nearly growling in frustration.

I waited, but he didn’t call again so I broke and dialed his number.

“Karkat Vantas,” I said when I heard the phone pick up, “Just the man I wanted to hear.”

There was nothing but heavy breathing from the other end, like someone was open-mouthed breathing into the phone with their lips of the receiver. Creepy AF.

“Hello?” I said, thinking that I’d called the wrong number, “Is this Karkat speaking?”

A brief pause. More quiet breathing. “No, s’not Karkat, brother,” came a drolling voice through the other end.

“Oh, sorry then,” I said, secretly relieved, “I must have the wrong number.”

I was about to hang up when the strange guy answered. “Naw bro, this his phone.”

My skin crawled and I wanted to hang up anyway. I realized that I’d never heard his brother speak before. Was this Kankri? God I hoped not. 

“Kankri?” I hazarded a guess. 

“I’m not that motherfucker,” Now the sleepy voice was pleasantly tickled, like he was enjoying the game he was playing, “I’m a different motherfucker.” I pinched the bridge on my nose between two fingers and let out a deep breath.

“Listen,” I said, beginning to get pissed off, “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but could you kindly put Karkat on the line?”

He laughed, surprisingly loud and full-bodied. “So polite,” he said, and the laughter was gone like it had never happened. Like a switch had flipped. What the fuck? “Especially when I can hear your blood’s all up and shaken. You the guy been messin’ round with my favored motherfucking bro?”

What the fuuuuuuuck?

“Maybe I fucking am,” I answered, and now I was right and proper pissed off, “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, motherfucker.”

“I’ll be judging that shit,” Came the answer, laced lightly with menace and threat, “be judging that shit real hard.”

“Well then, can I call you Judge Judy?” I asked, throwing ridiculousness into the conversation to see if I could get him off-guard. “Listen Judy, Karkat and I are tight, and if anyone is wanting to challenge that you let them come at me directly instead of hiding faceless through a phone like a fucking coward. We’re tight, we’re besties. We’re the best thing since sliced bread and if you’ve got a problem with that, motherfucker, then you can fuck right off and go to hell, how about that Judy? Can I call you Judy? I’m just going to stick to Judy. You’ll have to set up a court case at your nearest legal processing room to book a proper time and place for me to kindly serve you your own ass on a silver platter if you don’t give Karkat back his fucking phone in the next ten seconds.”

“Motherfuck,” Now he just sounded awestruck and nonplussed, like nothing I’d said had any effect on him. It all just slid right off. “Y’all don’t need to get all kinds of worked up over me now, Karkat’s walked out a sec. He’s off to shoot churches and mix crosses like a miracle worker while takin’ the favored with him, ya get what I be meaning? He’ll be right pissed he missed you, this motherfucking motherfucker be callin’ me Judge Judy like she ain’t THE SHIT, right bro?”

I had literally no idea what this insane motherfucker was rambling on about, but I did get the part where he said Karkat had walked out for a second. It didn’t even seem like he was talking to me anymore, it was like he was talking at me, about myself, like that made any sense. I plastered a fake smile on my face even though I knew he wouldn’t see it and spoke through my teeth.

“Could you please tell him to call me back then?” I asked tightly. Everything about this conversation was causing me mental pain. I could feel my IQ dropping with each heavy breath this dude took directly into the speaker. Dear God. Make it stop.

“Sure, shit man, why didn’t you say so?” he said, sounding surprised now, “I’ll let him know a motherfucker called him up.” Where was his suspicious threatening gone to? It was like he didn’t even remember the beginning of our conversation. “I’ll tell him ah…. Shit.” Another maddening giggle. “What was that again bro?”

“That a friend called,” I said, a vein in my forehead beginning to pulse.

He laughed again, like I’d just said the best joke he’d ever heard, and with a snap he bit the noise off. “Sure, man, sure. I’ll be sure to give him the knowing that… shit. I think that’s him now.”

“Thank God,” I said out loud, deeply relieved, and I heard Karkat through the phone.

“Gamzee, what the fuck are you up to with my phone?” Karkat’s voice was a blessing after the auditory assault I’d just suffered through, even when it wasn’t directed at me.

“Some motherfucker called,” the guy breathed out simply, “I answered.”

“The fuck man? Who is it?”

“Not a single fucking clue, bro.”

I yelled into the phone. “Karkat!”

“Give that to me,” Karkat ordered, and there was a shuffle of static as the phone changed hands. “Hello?”

“Man,” I said, “If I’d known what I’d be subjected too I might never have called you back. What the fuck Karkat?”

“One second,” he said, and I heard him yelling again at the guy to give him a moment of privacy. “Yeah, sorry Dave, Gamzee isn’t the most coherent person at times.”

“Who now?”

“Gamzee,” Karkat said, and I heard the sigh embedded deep in his voice, like the name was a weight pressing on him. “An old friend.”

“Okay,” I said, reorienting myself with a bit of difficulty, “So… how are you?”

“I’m doing fine, I guess. You?”

“I’m still thinking about that book,” I said.

“And?”

“I think it’s, like. Reading it. I just kept feeling like, like.”

“Like?” he asked, teasing me.

“Like it was a gift?” I hazarded. “Like you’d given me something important.”

“Oh,” he said quietly.

“Wait, that’s cheesy. I’m sorry.” I said, still holding the phone cradled close to my face.

“No,” he said, “No. Don’t apologize.”

“But it doesn’t end.”

“Yeah,” he said, and this time I could hear the regret there.

“Torture. I totally get it, like, I get that Anna died or whatever.”

“I would assume so,” he answered.

“Okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.”

“I don’t know,” he said, defending his favorite book. “That’s the part I like about the book in some way. It portrays death truthfully, you die in the middle of your life, middle of a sentence even. But I do- God, I do really want to know what happens to everyone else.”

Perfect. My evil plan was shaping up to its main event. My anticipation was stretched taunt. “Right, you said he was a bit of a recluse?”

“Correct.”

“Utterly unreachable,” I said, savoring the moment before it happened.

“Unfortunately,” Karkat said, but hesitantly, like he could make out something off in my voice.

“Karkat,” I said grandly, “What would you say if I had a surprise for you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a filler chapter, but they can't all be The Most Important, right?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is up so soon because I wrote this while procrastinating studying for my exams. Don't be like me, people. Study for your exams and don't write emotional pain to distract yourself from the mental anguish of advanced chemistry.

Chapter six.

It took Karkat three days to write the email, and then another two days before I could finally convince him to send it.

“Look,” I told him, “I didn’t spend a week digging through the smoldering bowels of the internet for that guy’s email, dodging deepweb hackers and my Bro’s AI insert program just so you could never ask about the ending of the book.”

Karkat sat back, his hand propped under his chin in thought as he stressed. “What if it’s not written right?” he asked. “What if he doesn’t like it or thinks I’m just an obsessed fan who stalked him down to pester him?”

“In our defense, that is exactly what we did,” I said, “Karkat, can I read it first? If it’s the email you’re worried about I might be able to help.”

“No,” he said immediately, then revised his answer when I couldn’t restrain a slight jump at the sharpness of his voice. He gnawed on his lip for a moment, worrying it between his teeth. “it’s just, no. wait, yes. Yes you can read it, just…” He opened up his laptop and pulled up the draft onscreen. “Just know that it’s not what you were probably expecting.” His voice was oddly flat, expressionless and dull, but he held out the laptop to me.

I started to read silently, mouthing the words as I did.

“Dear Mr. Peter Van Houten,

My name is Karkat Vantas. A friend of mine managed to discover this email and I hope that you will not mind that he shared it with me.

Mr. Van Houten, I understand that you will not be publishing any more books. In a way, I’m disappointed, but I’m also relieved. I never have to worry about whether or not your next book will live up to the magnificent perfection of the original. As a Stage Three leukemia survivor, I can say that I completely sympathize with Anna and that you got everything exactly right in An Imperial Affliction. Or, at least you got ME right. Your book has a way of telling me what I’m feeling before I even feel it, and I’ve reread it dozens of times.”

My throat began to tighten, but I read on.

“I wonder, though, if you would mind answering a few questions that I have about what happens after the books ending. I understand and agree with your decision to end the novel as you did, but it leaves me with some questions about the other characters. What about Anna’s mom? Does she marry the Dutch Tulip Man, does she ever have another child, and does she stay in her home? Is the Dutch Tulip Man a fraud and if yes does she ever find out? What happens to Anna’s friends- particularly Claire and Jake? Do they stay together? And lastly- and I realize that this is the kind of deep and thoughtful question you have always hoped that your readers would ask- what becomes of Sisyphus the hamster? These questions have haunted me for years- and I don’t know how long I have left to get them answered.”

Yep. My throat was definitely tight. It was like I’d swallowed a rough rock that sat heavy and clogging in my throat in exactly the right place that made it painful to swallow past.

“I know these are not the important literary questions that your book is full of, but I would really like to know,” Karkat’s email went on, “And, of course, if you ever do decide to write anything again, even unpublished, I’d love to read it.

Yours with great admiration,

Karkat Vantas.”

I set the laptop aside. Karkat sat waiting silently beside me, his brown eyes completely inscrutable. 

I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat, not yet, but Karkat deserved some kind of response so I took a calculated risk and slowly reached out and took his hand.

His fingers were cool to the touch.

“Stage three?” I said softly as I held his hand for the first time.

“Yeah,” he breathed, looking down at where our fingers interlocked. “I start the first round of chemo in a few weeks.”

Illness repulses. Its evolutionary, a reaction ingrained within our very DNA to avoid sickness at all costs. It’s what drove away friends and struck wedges between families when the times got hard and the lingering smell of vomit never went away as I lay in a hospital bed, listening to the steady beeping of my own heart where it was displayed on a flat screen as I read texts from John about how he was sorry he couldn’t make it to visit me. All excuses I’d heard before that fell flatly even through text as I wondered if it would hurt very much, waking up after missing close to a full one-fifth of me.

I didn’t let that happen now. I knew what it was like to feel unclean, so I shifted closer until my leg rested against his and squeezed his hand.

“It’s going to be alright,” I said, and his shoulders drifted closer until I could hear him breathing. He slowly leaned down until his head rested gently against my shoulder as he let out a helpless laugh.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, “We’re all just side effects.”

…

Three days later I got a message from Karkat. The message was short.

CarcinoGeneticist began pestering TurntechGodhead at 3:22 pm.

CG- SOLLUX IS OUT OF SURGERY. IT WENT WELL. HE’S OFFICIALLY NEC.

No evidence of cancer. A cure at the cost of his sight.

TG- how’s he doing? I know he’s blind and that’s gotta suck but I still have to ask.

CG- AS FINE AS HE CAN BE, I GUESS.

TG- I’ll have to go see him. Want to come with me?

CG- THAT’D BE NICE.

…

Bro consented to loaning me the car so I could drive down to Memorial to see him. Stopped by Karkat’s house to pick him up, and he spent the entire time gripping the seat in a death grip, his hand a vise on the roof handle at my rough driving.

“I am not going to comment on your driving,” he growled, looking green, “Except that I refuse to die in an orange bug so I swear to God if you kill us I’m haunting your ass.”

I shrugged as I bounced over the curb at the hospital and pulled into a parking spot. “I warned you.”

He scowled. “Seeing it firsthand is different.”

Sollux was on the fifth floor with the door to his single room open. I knocked anyway, and a woman’s voice said “Come in.”

It was a nurse, and she was doing something with the bandages on Sollux’s eyes.

“Hey man,” Karkat said gently, “we’re here.”

“We’re?” he said, and I cleared my throat so he would know I was there. “Fef?”

“Dave,” I corrected gently.

“Oh,” he said, white cotton wrapped all the way around his head. “Yeah, people keep saying that my other sensed will improve to compensate, but CLEARLY NOT YET.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Things can take time.”

“Well, I still should have known it was you,” he said. “I should have magically sensed the world’s greatest douchebag had fouled the air around me with his very presence.”

“He’s joking,” the nurse said.

“Yes,” I said, “I realize that.”

she fiddled for a moment longer, then left the room. 

“Joking my ass,” Sollux grumbled, “Now come over here and let me feel your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted person ever could.”

Karkat stepped closer to the bed and I followed him. Sollux had bitten his nails; I could see the blood dried around his cuticles.

“How are you doing?” Karkat asked.

“Okay,” he said, then shifted. “I don’t know.” He reached out, and his fingers found his pain pump at the side of the cot and flipped the switch.

Good narcotics began to drip into his IV lines. I knew it wouldn’t take long before he got to feel them working.

“It’s alright,” he said slowly, staring ahead at nothing. “I know that not everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever. I know that life’s not fair.”

His hand turned into a fist and his mouth tightened. I could see the pain there, and it was a hard thing to watch because another person in pain reminded me of my own helplessness to stop it.

“I just wish sometimes, ya know?” Sollux asked. “I just with thith whole thing hadn’t happened. The whole canther thing, for all of us in thith room.” His speech was slowing down, his old lisp reappearing. The medicine was working. 

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“S’alright.” Sollux slurred. “It feelths better now.”

Good,” Karkat said, his vice tight and strained with a different kind of pain. “That’s good Sollux.”

But he was gone, carried off on the waves of medical strength industrial opiates as in his much-needed slumber, he left us behind to feel the pain that we couldn’t hit a button to escape from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Here we go. We're getting into the meat of the story now.  
> From here on out, expect a heavier load of emotional pain. No one should be surprised by this, we all know that this can be going nowhere good.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its short and late I'm sorry! The next chapter will be uploaded soon and it will be better :)

The next day, I was out of breath after climbing all of the stairs back to our apartment. It was the middle of summer, and the sun was blinding as it beat down on me. I was squinting through the glare even with my shades and was relieved to be back indoors.

Back in my room, I found I had a pester online. It was from Karkat, and instead of a greeting it contained a few paragraphs of copied lettering that went like this,

CarcinoGenetisist began pestering TurntechGodhead at 2:14pm.

CG- “Dear Karkat Vantas,

I, Peter Van Houten, am the recipient of your electronic mail and am duly impressed by the Shakespearean complexity of your personal tragedy. Everyone in this tale has a rock solid hamartia: yours, that you are so sick, his, that he is so well. As for what you have asked about, all I can say is that your faith has been misplaced, as faith usually is.

I cannot answer your questions. But I am particularly indebted to you, sir, both for your kind words about An Imperial affliction and for taking the time to tell me that the book, and here I quote you directly, “meant a great deal” to you.

This comment however, leads me to wonder: what do you mean my MEANT? Given the final futility of our struggle, is the fleeting jolt of meaning that art gives us valuable? Or is the only value in the passing the time as comfortably as possible? This line of inquiry inevitably reduces us to asking what it means to be human and whether- to borrow a phrase from the angst-encumbered teen you no doubt revile- there is a point to it all.

I fear there is not, my friend. That noted, I must confess that the unexpected receipt of your correspondence has delighted me. What a wondrous thing to know that I made something useful to you- even if that book seems so distant from me I feel as it were written by another man altogether. (the author of that novel was so thin, so frail, so comparatively optimistic!)

As for your personal tragedy, were you any sicker the stars would not be so terrible crossed. But it is the nature of stars to be crossed. There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars, never was Shakespeare so wrong that when he had Cassius note “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ but in ourselves.”

As much as it pleases me that you found such comfort in my novel and all its frail inconsistencies, as for what happens next, I cannot say. They are fictional characters, and they cease to exist as soon as the book is closed. They were simple tools used to inflict a different man’s idealistic and overtly futile struggle onto unknowing and unassuming readers such as yourself.

With a heavy hand, Peter Van Houten.”

I was quick to type out a reply.

TG- ok ok, what the actual fuck?

CG- I KNOW. I CAN SCARCELY WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THIS GUY’S EGOTISTICAL AUDACITY TO ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AS A COMPUTER AND TYPE THIS OUT TO ME WITHOUT EVER ONCE THINKING ABOUT WHAT A MONUMENTAL FUCKING ASSHAT THIS REPLY WOULD MAKE HIM.

CG- WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!

CG- GOD I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. WHAT EVEN IS THIS? WHAT IS LIFE?

TG- Karkat, man I’m sorry. I didn’t expect Van Asshaten to be such a dick.

CG- NO. THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT DAVE. IT HIS, AND I’M NOT GOING TO STAND FOR IT.

TG- let’s wage a war through a combination on such fanatically impressive zeros and ones that it’ll explode his computer. Lets wreck his shit. Hardcore. Like hell am I taking that for an answer.

CG- THANKS DAVE. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOT I CAN’T EVEN THINK STRAIGHT.

TG- I’ll write him back myself, right now, and inform him of the gravity of his mistake.

TG- Striders are not to be fucked with. We are unfuckable, we have never been fucked. You cannot fuck us. You CANNOT fuck us.

CG- AND HERE I WAS GETTING EXITED ABOUT HAVING HIS EMAIL. I THOUGHT THAT I WAS GOING TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, BUT I GUESS NOT.

TG- no, don’t think like that. I’ll track him down myself if I have to and find out what happens to my one and only true love, sir Sisyphus the hamster. How dare he withhold from me the fate of my natural soulmate?!

CG- THANKS FOR MAKING ME FEEL BETTER, BUT REALLY, ITS ALRIGHT. IT WAS A SHOT IN THE DARK IN ANY CASE. I SURVIVED BEFORE NOT KNOWING AND IT DOESN’T REALLY CHANGE ANYTHING.

TG- Karkat, I am going to get those answers for you. Persuading me otherwise is futile and childish. Just accept my help already and this will go much smoother.

CG- OH MY GOD STRIDER STOP FLIRTING WITH ME!

TG- hey, you were the one to spill the beans of our freshly budded relationship to him via email without my knowing. I’m entitled to some righteous rogue flirtation as payback.

CG- “FRESHLY BUDDED RELATIONSHIP?” IS THAT WHAT THIS IS? ARE WE IN A RELATIONSHIP?

TG- I’d like to be, if that’s cool with you.

CG- NOPE. NOT SO FAST. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ASK ME OUT OVER PESTERCHUM.

TG- god Karkat you’re such a romantic. Fine, can I come over later then?

CG- PLEASE.

CarcinoGenetisist ceased pestering TurntechGodhead at 3:10 pm.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! I'm still keeping to my one to two new chapters a week schedule, and the pace and quality of my work should pick up now that my life is starting to make sense again.  
> Anyway- we're getting into the story right and proper now. No more beginning writing exposition crap. Now we can get shit done. ;)

Chapter eight.

I found him outback, sitting morosely on a rusted swing set that looked like I’d get an infection from just standing near it. It was a sore in the otherwise orderly and neatly fenced backyard. 

“You’re a braver man than me,” I said, walking nearer. “That looks like a tetanus booster shot just waiting to strike.”

There was a second swing beside him, and I took a seat. Rust flaked off beneath my fingers and my legs were too long to leave the ground. This was a child’s playset in full-on decomposition. It was a depressing sight.

“What’s up?” I asked, and he shrugged his shoulders. Karkat ran a hand through his hair, refusing to look at me as I swallowed thickly.

“What are we doing?” he asked at last, “What are we thinking?”

“About what?” I asked, knowing, but not wanting to assume. 

He sighed in frustration. “Dave, I am sick.”

I replied, “I know.”

“I might not get better,” he warned, “And I’m about to start round one of treatment. It’s not going to be pretty. Or nice or fun or anything besides depressing as hell and I don’t want to put you through that.”

“Listen Karkat,” I said, completely serious, “You have every right to decide who you hold close to you, especially during such a tough time for you. You have every right to drop our friendship, or demand that it stays only a friendship, or anything else that you feel would be best, and I would wholly support your decision.”

“Dave,” Karkat said, sounding hurt.

“No,” I told him, “Wait. I’m not done yet.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, but allowed me to continue as I scraped together the right words.

“The way I see it,” I said, “You don’t have to be afraid. I understand more about having cancer than 99% of teens my age and I know how hard chemo is. I know that this is going to hurt, that both of us are going to get hurt, because even if you drop me I’m still going to know and cutting me off isn’t going to stop me from caring. And,” I said seriously, “This is the most important thing- life is full of hurts.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“We both know that life is unfair and that the world is filled with dead people and sucky shit, but getting hurt can sometimes be a good thing.” I said. “Your book told me that pain demands to be felt, but there’s more to it than that. Pain in unavoidable. The best we can do is choose who we let hurt us.”

It sounded very wise once I’d said it. Goddamn, what a smooth line. I’d have to remember that one.

“But I don’t want to hurt you.” He said softly, bringing my runaway head back into the conversation. “I don’t want to cause any more suffering than what is strictly necessary.”

I could understand that. I knew what it felt like to be a grenade, just waiting to go off and leave everyone around me embedded with shrapnel. Once, that had been me. 

“Karkat Vantas,” I said, turning to face him fully. “It would be an honor to be hurt by you.”

I watched as the blood rose in his face, a delicate blush spreading across his cheeks as we met eyes, and a jolt ran through me at the ethereal contact. It was like laying a finger against a live wire. Electric.

The air between us was charged. It felt like the world was holding its breath.

“I am afraid,” Karkat admitted, his legs scuffing the bare ground at his feet, down through the dead and rotting leaves. “I don’t want to die.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. We fight and we fight and we fight. Cancer doesn’t give a shit how hard we fought- in the end it’s all down to luck. Not medicine, not fate, not God. The mutated cells did not care about our welfare; their only purpose was to grow regardless of the effect they had on their host. 

“I know,” I said. “God, do I know.”

He looked up again, his voice choked. “Did… did you go through chemo?”

“No,” I said, “It wasn’t considered an effective treatment method for me.”

“Good,” Karkat said. “I hear its utter hell. I hear it makes you want to die.”

“It can work though,” I said hopefully, stubbornly, “Even at stage three, it can work.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Karkat said, determination coloring his tone, “It better fucking work or I’m going to be pissed.”

“I’ll be pissed too,” I said, “I made it out, minus a leg, but I did make it through my cancer and so the hell will you.”

He smiled, something small and fleeting. “Thanks. I needed this.” He said.

“Nope,” I said, “we’re not done yet. I haven’t forgotten why I came over.”

“Oh?” he asked, and not his eyebrow was raised in an inquisitive quirk, sly and playful. He was going to make me spell it out for him. Asshole. 

“Karkat,” I said, “Whether it’s as only a friend or something more, I want you to know I’ll be there for you no matter what.”

“And is that isn’t just as a friend?” he asked, adorably awkward and hopeful.

“Honestly, that’s the option I’d personally prefer.” I said, smiling. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to date me. I’m a hot commodity, going fast. Dave’s are flying off the shelves in stores all over the country. It’s a record! Act fast to secure yourself a genuine Dave Strider before supplies run out. I’m an endangered species, come get one while it lasts or-”

He leaned over across the space between us and gently pressed is lips to mine. My chatter died off as a slow burn started to build wherever his fingers rested against my skin as his hand came up to my face. It was gentle, soft, still slightly hesitant.

My hand came up to his hair, marveling at its softness, the warmth of his scalp and those small divots along his neck where nerves connected to his spine. I leaned closer, sighing contently, and suddenly lost my balance as the rusty swing shifted beneath me and dumped me flat out on my back. My breath rushed out in a pained whoosh and I struggled for a moment to breathe again as Karkat laughed down at me.

“You know Dave,” he said, helping me back up again. “You’re such a dork sometimes.”

“Its not my fault,” I protested, my back sore from where I’d landed on a tree root as I brushed off the clinging damp leaves. I could feel muscles screaming as they pulled along my bruised spine. “That swing has it out for me. It’s a vicious beast, rusted green with jealousy.”

“Rust isn’t green, moron. And why would a swing be jealous of you?” he asked, and I reached out again for his hand and laced our fingers together.

“Because,” I said smugly, “your ass belongs to me now. It must now go out and journey to seek other butts for it’s rusty charms to entertain, because yours is claimed.”

“Dave!” he said, nearly doubling over with laughter at my comment.

“It’s true,” I said, “If anything, it should be glad. I’ve freed it from its depressing existence of silently decomposing in your backyard. It should be thanking me and praising my name, not dumping me on my ass like a jealous ex-lover.”

“Vendetta aside,” he commented wistfully. “You might have a point. We don’t ever use this old swing set anymore. It’s quite the eye-sore. Maybe it would be better for it to find a new home.”

“And may that new home be plentiful in joyous young butts,” I said, seized with an idea. “I have an idea…”

…

His dad let in someone while we composed the literary masterpiece that was the Craigslist ad for the old swingset. I didn’t recognize him, but from the heavy lidded but hyperactively-aware stare he gave me I was pretty sure who this was.

He said nothing, just ambled in and collapsed onto the couch in the basement. Karkat sighed and turned to me.

“Gamzee,” he explained. “He stays here sometimes.”

From the couch, the limp figure didn’t move. He’d become nothing more than a pile of sprawled limbs and wild black hair.

“Am I allowed to ask or…” I trailed off uncertainly. The monitor’s screen flickered, a wave of static interrupting my ad planning. I refreshed the page.

Karkat said nothing, but from the couch there rose a chuckle and the figure shifted. He drew himself upright like gravity was a surprise, a tree falling in reverse.

“Who’re you?” he asked, locking eyes with me like he’d just noticed I was there.

“Dave,” I said. “I believe we met on the phone earlier.”

He laughed again, and the computer flickered with more static. Creepy AF.

“Dave, then.” Gamzee said, and Karkat turned on the basement lights. With the flip of a switch light flooded the room. I set my shades back in place before the other teen could notice my eyes. Without the shadows the room felt not as charged, and I could see a series of deep scars that marred his face and drug his lips into a sneer. “I’m Gamzee. Pleasure to meet you, here in my best bro’s place. I remember you, callin’ me Judge Judy and all that shit.”

“That sounds about right,” I said, trying to be friendly. He ignored me.

“Karkat,” he said, clutching at his head with a hand, a frown on his face. “The room won’t stop spinning. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

Instantly Karkat was concerned and at his side. “Have you taken your meds today?” he asked.

Gamzee grunted. “Can’t remember.”

I came closer as Karkat checked his pupils. They were blown wide and dilated so much it was scary. The whites of his eyes were a weepy red. I caught my first whiff of marijuana. 

Karkat growled. “Gamzee!”

“What?” he slurred.

“You do not mix pills and weed, do you understand?”

“Didn’t take no pills.”

“You do not mix weed and booze then!”

“That’s dangerous, mixing depressants and stimulants.” I butted in.

“I know,” Karkat sighed, frustrated. “Moron.” Gamzee just shrugged.

“Stay here,” Karat ordered him, grabbing me by the hand as he hauled me upstairs. “Get some rest and sleep it off. That’s why you came here anyway.”

Gamzee’s eyes drifted closed again, not a worry in the world. Karkat turned the lights back off as we left.

He groaned and kicked the baseboard of the wall, grimacing. “Sorry,” he apologized. “He’s not normally like that.”

“I don’t judge,” I said. “We all deal with our shit in different ways.”

“It’s just that Gamzee is determined to deal with all his shit in all the worst possible ways. If there is a bad decision to be made, he will up bright and early and standing eagerly at the front of the line to make it.” Karkat said.

“What meds is he off of?” I asked curiously. Some meds did a number when discontinued. They could wreck your system and leave you comatose. Generally, cutting meds was a bad idea. Mixing weed and booze into the equation was just down right stupid. 

“Anti-psychotics,” Karkat said hesitantly, like i would hear the words and bolt. “He’s schizophrenic but he hates his meds. He says they make him numb and mindless, so instead he self-medicated with weed and it drives me right up the fucking wall. He’s going to kill himself one day, I’m sure, and he’ll have no one but himself to blame.”

“Shit,” I said, also concerned. “That’s not smart.”

“I…” Karkat tried, then gave up halfway through the sentence. It was too much of a struggle.

“He crash here a lot?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Karkat put a hand behind his head, leaning against the wall. “He’s like a brother to me. I met him years ago. Mostly I go pick him up when he comes to himself and realizes he’s in some ass-backwards ally smoking with people he doesn’t know and the voices are too loud again. He’s harmless, but he needs someone there to look out for him sometimes when he’s stupid about caring for himself.”

“You’re a good friend,” I said. “We all need someone that has our back.”

“I swear though,” Karkat said, the distant look on his face vanishing. “If he gets cross-faded one more time I’m locking him in my fridge until he sobers the hell up.”

My hand found his again, and I kissed him underneath one of the hanging wall crosses that adorned the walls.

“Hey,” I said softly as I broke away. “It’s alright.”

He leaned in again, and I happily obliged him by kissing his lips slowly. Just enough until I heard him sigh as he breathed deeply.

“It’s going to be alright,” I said, making it a promise as his lips found mine again and I thought that there was nothing in this world that could ever make me pull away. Cancer could bite me. I was going to fucking make this alright, no matter what.

I couldn’t afford not to.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its 413!!!!!!!!
> 
> With the arrival of this sacred day comes the revival of this fic. I've been struggling the past few chapters, trying to reconcile the fact that John Green and I have opposite writing styles and I didn't see how his plotline could work with Dave and Karkat. I was really struggling, but I finally decided to say screw it, I'm writing this how i want to. I know where this story is going now and I know how to get it there.
> 
> So, let's do this.
> 
> Happy 413 everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chapter nine.

I spent that night formulating another email to Van Houten, one that clearly outlined exactly why I needed him to answer back Karkat. I restrained myself from any undo aggression during the email, signed it respectfully, and hit send at two in the morning. 

I didn’t sleep well that night. I had way too many thoughts bouncing around my head to the point that that it ached. I woke up grumpy and irritated and the first thing I did was check my email for a response.

Nothing.

Dammit.

I sighed and slipped my prosthetic and shades on. Outside the sun was blistering and I had the wholeness of a summer day with nothing to do.

I decided to visit Sollux. He was out of the hospital now and on the road to recovery. A visit would do him some good.

He didn’t live far away. His house was smushed up against some fancy private school and part of its gated fence towered over his backyard. When we were younger, we’d throw eggs over the fence and laugh and hope we ruined some rich kid’s day. God, even young we were assholes.

He was wearing two eyepatches that crossed over each other when he answered the door, one red, one blue. Just like his old 3-d glasses. His short hair was a mess and stuck up in spikes along the sides of his head. His skin looked pale and slightly sallow, but he was smiling. 

I whistled. “Starting new fashion trends, aren’t we?”

He smirked. “I was wondering when you’d stop by.”

“You know I just can’t keep myself away,” I teased lightly.

He let me in and we walked into the living room, where he flopped heavily onto the couch. “Want to play a game?”

“Sure,” I said, and he turned on the TV, then a computer beside it. The screen stayed blank, but a voice spoke.

“Player one, identify yourself.”

“This is player one’s sexy voice,” Sollux said.

“Player two, identify yourself.”

I cut a glance at him before I remembered that he couldn’t see it. “I guess I’m player two.” I said.

-Two Dersite agents stand alone in a dark alley. Spades Slick and Diamonds Droog stand waiting for the other members of The Midnight Crew to join them for a night of nefarious and morally ambiguous mobster shenanigans. There is a dumpster nearby.-

Sollux waved at the screen like I was supposed to speak to it.

“Does the dumpster smell?” I asked, trying to get the feel of the game.

-It does-, the mechanical voice said.

“Diamonds Droog steps away from the horrible stench,” I said, quickly getting the hang of this. I guessed that meant I was playing as Diamonds Droog and not Spades Slick.

Sollux stepped in. “Spades Slick follows him and pulls out a knife. He begins to sharpen it.”

Sollux’s brother darted into the room, like he’d been lying in wait. “I KILL MYSELF!” He yelled in a pretty good imitation of Sollux’s voice, then quickly bolted for the door.

-Spades Slick puts the knife to his neck. Are you sure you-

“Mituna!” Sollux yelled, “No, wait. Pause.” The game went silent. “Mituna, I may be blind, but I will still kick your ass.”

His brother cackled and shot me a toothy grin. “Aw, go suck a dick.” He said. “Maybe it would loosen you up a little.”

“Mituna,” Sollux deadpanned. “You’re the only one here that knows what dick tastes like, so I’d shut the hell up if I were you.”

“That was one time!” Mituna protested, and I burst out laughing. His face was so offended, but he stormed out of the room and left us alone after that.

“One time?” I asked curiously.

“Summer camp,” Sollux said, shuddering. “Unpause.”

We continued playing. Eventually we were joined by the other two members of the Midnight Crew, and we stalked some guy into an alley and stabbed him after learning he was a rival member of our mortal nemesis- The Felt.

“I told you,” I commented as Diamonds instructed the others to leave the body behind. “That hat gave him away. No one else would wear a numbered green bowling hat.”

“Fine,” Sollux admitted, “But I still don’t see why you had to stab him.”

“If this were reality, you would have stabbed him,” I said. “Slick is always ready to stab things and see if they bleed.”

“This game is fucked up,” Sollux decided, but we played on. 

-The blood is noticeable. The cops are sure to find the murder scene and the body. Leave the scene untouched?-

“Leave it,” Sollux said. “The Felt will find him first. Let them know we’re coming for them.”

“Diamonds Droog leaves an Ace of Diamonds behind, tucked neatly into the Felt’s breast pocket,” I said. We continued onto some old mansion, where we encountered several more Felt and were separated in the resulting battle.

-Spades Slick is outnumbered by three Felt members. He has only a small knife. Stay and fight or try to escape?-

“Fight,” Sollux sighed. “Pause.” He turned to me. “This is where Karkat always fucks up. He always wants to try and befriend the Felt members instead of killing them, even though that’s how you win the game.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “He’d try to make friends with a brick wall if it needed his help.”

“He’s always been extremely prickly and hard to get close too,” Sollux said softly, “But once you do, he’s the best friend ever.”

“I thought I was your best friend ever?” I said, mock-hurt.

“Bastard,” Sollux said. “You’re far too selfless to be a flawless friend.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You and Karkat both,” he said seriously. The game was still paused in the background. “You give so much but try and act like nothing touches you.” He snorted. “Most friends would have dropped me on my ass after the surgery. Most of them did actually. Friends, girlfriends, none of them stayed. You two did.” I could hear the gratitude in his voice.

“That’s what friends are for.” I said, my throat tight. “We look out for each other.”

“Do you like him?” Sollux asked.

I was silent. “Unpause.”

“Pause,” Sollux said firmly. “Do you like him?” he repeated. 

I said nothing.

“Dave?”

“Be quiet, I’m thinking.” I said.

Sollux grumbled. “I should have known you’d make a big deal out of this.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I just want to get the words right.”

“I’m waiting.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest.

I swallowed thickly. “I think that we might be dating actually.” I admitted. “I kissed him.”

“And?”

“And he kissed me back?”

Sollux threw his hands up. “That’s it. That’s fucking it. You are the worst friend ever!” he growled. “I spend nearly a year trying to get the two of you in the same room and you get together only after I go fucking blind?!”

“What?!” I nearly yelled. I was floored, stunned. 

“I tried for nearly two fucking years to get you two together,” Sollux said, pissed as all hell. “You moron. You shit-faced cretin.”

“Did you just call me a cretin?” I asked, scrambling for anything coherent in my brain that might help this to make sense.

“You motherfucker,” Sollux said, then paused and tilted his head to the side. “Was it a good kiss?”

“Oh my God,” I said, my heart pounding. “You didn’t.”

“I fucking did,” Sollux growled again. “You’re welcome. It only cost me my vision, so, you know, no biggie.”

“God,” I said, running a hand through my hair. I thought back to each time I’d turned down offers to hang, invites to grab food. How many of them had Karkat said yes to? “We really are the worst friends ever.”

I really was my own worst enemy. The only thing that stopped me from finding Karkat sooner was myself.

“The absolute worst,” Sollux agreed. “How is Karkat taking it?”

“Well, I think,” I said. “He’s worried about hurting me.”

“He’s worried about hurting everyone.” Sollux said, “But he shouldn’t cut off all human contact out of fear like that. Cutting off all human contact and living like a leper isn’t much better than being dead. It’s not like cancer’s catching.”

A thousand thoughts ran through my head. Being alone wasn’t any kind of life, but if the act of socializing would only cause pain to the ones you cared about? What was the right answer here?

It would be an honor to be hurt by you, I’d told him. I meant that. I meant that to my bones and back.

I said, “It’s hard,” though the words themselves were easy.

“Life’s always hard about the things that matter,” Sollux said. “Unpause.”

…

That night I finally had a response to my email, but it wasn’t from Peter van Houten.

“Greetings Dave,” the opening read.

“This is Damara Vliegenthart, Peter Van Houten’s personal secretary. While normally I would have stayed out of my boss’s business, recent events have prompted me to, probably regretfully, stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.

I hope that you forgive me, but I have read all of your previous correspondence with Mr. van Houten and I sympathize deeply with your current situation. My boss and his arrogance should not be forced on another living being in such a way, and I apologize for his actions. 

At great personal risk to myself, I have decided to help you out. While I cannot magically give you or Karkat the answers that you seek for I do not know them, I do know this-

Mr. Van Houten is making a stateside trip in two months to Jacksonville Florida for a business venture. It will be the first time he is back in America for over a decade. If he knew that I have told you this I would be removed from my position immediately, so I hope that you keep this email to yourself in return for the information that I have gifted to you.

If you can make the trip, that would be the best possible time to ambush him. In person he will not be able to brush you aside so easily. I cannot guarantee that it will work, but it’s a fighting chance. My boss is not an easy man to like or understand, but for your sakes I hope that you can get through to him.”

The rest of the email was filled with details about Jacksonville and his personal itinerary for the trip. Fucking hell. Fuck. This was perfect. I scrolled through the details quickly and memorized them.

I called Karkat immediately after I forwarded him the email. He answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Check you fucking inbox,” I said excitedly, holding the phone close to my chin. “We might have just struck gold.”

“Hold on a sec,” He said, and I could hear him scrolling and hitting keys. A minute of breathless anticipation later, he let out a breath. “Holy fuck.”

“Did you read all of it?”

“Dave,” he said. “Do you think that…” he trailed away hesitantly, and I wished that he were here with me right now so I could take his hand.

“Karkat,” I asked seriously. “I need to let you know that I am totally down with kidnapping this son of a bitch and holding him against his will until he admits what happens after Anna dies.”

“No, we can’t kidnap him,” Karkat said, “Just… persuade maybe.”

“Gentle persuasion,” I agreed. “Nothing more, just a few harmless questions.”

“But it’s in Jacksonville,” Karkat said, slightly crestfallen but trying to hide it. “In two months. I start chemo in two weeks. I can’t go to Florida.”

In my rush to show Karkat the good news, the fact had slipped my mind. My euphoria crashed back to earth and left me feeling hollow. My fingers tightened on the phone.

“Don’t worry about that,” I reassured him. “We have to months to look at our options.” I was scrambling, trying to find some way to make this dream possible.

“I’ve never been to Florida,” Karkat sounded wistful and full of longing. My chest hurt. Stage Three. 

“Me neither,” I said, swallowing thickly. "I hear it’s lovely in the summer.” I tried to disguise how my voice trembled. 

“Fucking hell Dave,” he said, “This, this might just be insane enough to actually work.” He sounded so hopeful, so hesitantly excited.

“I know,” I said.

“Thank you so much for this,” he said. “For everything.”

“I know…”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure when this will update. I normally try to do one update every day but midterms are next week so....  
> Maybe I'll post chapter two then. This will be finished. I'm literally going to davekat the entire novel- so let's start this emotional rollercoaster right here and now.  
> We're doing this.  
> Hell yes.


End file.
